Problem with New CD player and Radio

[mbowman]

Hey guys! Happy New year. My wife purchased a new stereo for my Boat and I'm having some problems with it. Does anyone have any advice on these things.
The unit comes with a wiring harness with a ton of wires. Most of them I understand but no where does it say, "Positive or Negative" There is a "black" wire for the "ground", a "yellow" wire for constant power from the battery, and a "red" wire for the ignition switch. Well we don't have ignition switches on our boat.
At first I connected the ground wire to the ground on the boat (a wire connected to the chain plates and an old thru hull for the old head) then yellow to positive and red to negative. when that didn't work I swapped them around, red to pos and yellow to neg. That also didn't work. So I started just touching wires together.
When the black "ground" was on the neg and the "yellow" Constant power was on the pos the stereo came on for just a sec flashed a few times then went off.
Then I noticed that my volt meter on my instrument panel had dropped down to 10 volts. I'm running a single 12 volt battery which only runs lights, builge, and now stereo. I also installed a solar panel this week which in the last two days charged up the battery to almost a full 12 volts.

The stereo document said it would only run from 11 to 16 volts. could that be my problem?
Oh by the way: I know i have power to the two pos and neg wires. I connected a light to it and it worked.

I'm kind of confused right now.
the two pics are the new installed radio and my new solar pannel

Any help would be appreciated.

mike